Are you actually friends with Benning? Because how do you really know? I've been seeing this a lot on this board lately, anytime there is a rumor now it's fake news all the time now? Like this is starting to get ridiculous and Benning is the only guy who tells the truth all the time? Again we don't really know if he was being shopped, but if you put the pieces together it really looks like he was, the rumor back then was teams were watching JV for his ice time, magically about 2 weeks before the trade dealine Virtanen was bumped up the lineup even though he never earned it but was rewarded, definitely seems suspicious for the timing and the rumor of ice time. Then there was also a deal in place with Anaheim, but couldn't come to an agreement, again rumors but there are people out there who talk to a lot of people and they do hear things, I'm definitely sure more than anyone on CDC. Benning said Schmidt isn't being moved either, so I guess that won't happen... And if it does, does that mean Benning can't be trusted anymore?
Regarding Jake and his future here, he sure didn't seem to care much until about the trade deadline when he stepped up his game a bit, he played like he was trying to get moved but majority of his play looked like he really didn't care and took a free paycheck. I always felt when Horvat last year yelled at him at practice that was the nail in the coffin, it was just a matter of time, but then seeing him not moved to Arizona got a little skeptical on what Benning was doing, then see today bought out good.